In collaboration with Ayqa Khan and Oumayma B. Tanfous, this is a story of friendship, play, creativity, connection and timing. Last November, we gathered in my home to converse, craft and stoke beauty within each other. We each participated in every part of the process: playing dress-up, sculpting space, feeding, washing dishes, sharing tender stories about our maternal relationships and our motherlands. While we all played in front of and behind the camera, it is Ouma’s care-full and quiet precision with candid documentation that brought these raw scenes to life. What developed was a practice in trust, ease, revealing our quieter selves to the public and snuggling up to the in-between.
While Ayqa is a multimedia artist, I believe they live and breathe beauty in a way that titles cannot contain. I am consistently blown away by the depth and breadth of their expression—from digital illustration and painting, to accessories and jewelry.
In March, I posed a series of questions for Ayqa and I to answer separately during Nowruz (new year or spring equinox). Only recently did those answers come together, on the eve of the Gregorian new year. Hopping across these beginnings, we flow with the go and find newness in nowness.
Honoring the telepathic nature of friendships, this stream comes straight from the heart:
When you return to the light, where have you been?
Hawa: I have always been with the light, we travel together. There are times where I roam farther away from the center of all-encompassing light—not because I crave the darkness, but because I feel needed there. When fear calls us, sometimes it can be debilitating. But what if fear needed us to coax it back to trust? A call for help. I guess the “where” is a neutral zone, a place I try not to be conquered by, or act in conquest of, my emotions.
Ayqa: I was in a cave of contemplation and the wind pushed me out. The wind is a metaphor for rhythm. Returning to the light feels like making a choice, sometimes forcefully and other times after long periods of contemplation. Sometimes it's a moment of awareness. There is no linear journey with departures and arrivals in the inner world.
Is it possible to always be in the light? I think being in the light is like being in the infinity room. The concept of the infinity room was introduced to me through the Japanese artist Yayoi Kusama’s installation at a gallery on the west side (NYC). I went with a friend to see the artist's show. The room was lit with tiny circular lights that sparkled. It felt like we were standing still with the milky way. Unable to see the details of our faces, we submerged ourselves into the mirror. Kusama’s set of infinity rooms are inspired by the cosmos and ideas of infinite love. This notion of returning to the light feels like returning to infinite love. I think the light is already within us but it’s a journey that requires us to time travel through our emotions and what they are telling us, especially when they take away from us being able to live in the present.
When I experience difficulties, or am between collective and personal traumas, I can get stuck on a looped emotion. It can be hard to remember infinite love when you feel so down. How I manage to get myself out of sadness is ultimately through expression, vulnerability, and acceptance. I think the hardest but most important work is self-acceptance.
What does a new day look like to you?
H: Lately, new days begin with a smile on my face. I am just so happy to feel the sun again. That hasn’t always been the case. It hasn’t always felt like a new day can be its own without the baggage of the time before it, but I truly feel the possibility of an eternal present no matter how time or sequence urges me otherwise. A new day is a child that gets to choose how to spend their time. A new day is a gift of endless possibilities.
A: A new day feels like release, and looks like preparation. A day is marked by the rise of the sun, and the end of day with the fall of the moon. The earth's natural rhythms are something I'd like to align more with, inshallah, but my mental health can allow for a different kind of schedule - which I embrace. There is something about finding stillness at any time of the day that feels awakening to me; a clear grey sky with a few drops of rain, putting flowers that have yet to bloom in a vase, taking a shower and laying in bed naked to then slowly pleasure myself. It’s this setting of a re-charging station that allows for time to feel fresh and new, no matter where the sun or moon are. I think so much of newness for me are the moments I get to connect with and embrace my body - which doesn't always fit into a perfectly “timed” routine.
Why do you trust me? How do you know you can trust me?
H: I trust you because of your soul. I have never felt abandoned by you, and in spending time with you, you see layers beneath my outer shell. You see that “I” am not “me,” which is such a relief. I know I can trust you because our timing is impeccable. I trust the way you know things, not necessarily what you know.
A: I trust you, because I've committed myself to getting to know your petals as time allows for their unfoldings. I trust you because your presence makes me feel safe. I trust you because you’re not afraid of sharing yourself with the world. I know I can trust you because you build altars and take baths. I trust you because we have planted seeds together. It is through the knowing, and witnessing your commitment to other life forces that allow me to trust in the relationship that we have. They are all connected.
What is important to remember about love and connection?
H: The most important thing for me, lately, is that eternal love manifests itself through a multitude of connection points and states of bliss. Not all points and states are eternal in and of themselves…but I see love like an archipelago. Like a bevy of islands, stopping points from one heartfull moment to the next. Sometimes there are gaps, because I am not perfect and I succumb to forgetting! But the beautiful thing is we can choose to build bridges, rather than relegate people or feelings to an island (both are acceptable depending on where we are at!). And then we can fortify those bridges and congregate at their mouths until love fully expresses itself in our perception—spilling out of a moment-to-moment sequence and into a sustained and steady hum that permeates all space. I believe there is a type of love so perfect that it isn’t love anymore, it is simply the truth.
With connection, it’s important to remember what feels true to us in a world that conditions us to capitalize and mine connections. How can we honor connection more?
A: I think something important to remember about love is that everyone deserves it and feels it. It’s our right to experience love and it’s something that should be honored, held high and deeply valued culturally, politically, interpersonally etc. Connection is very innate and something we can constantly feel. I’ve been reckoning with behaviors of repression and trying to understand the ecosystem that breeds it. I have come to slowly and instinctively understand that shame is thrown onto us by systems of oppression and they really gotta go. Love and connection are not meant to be secrets or something to be ashamed about. It’s important for me to remind myself the way I express love or myself can look like so many different things…
Someone once told me that it’s not natural for a soul to tell lies. Those words really stayed with me because they showed me that we are meant to be intentional beings, and to cause as little harm as possible. Now the ecosystems that breed love and connection to me are deeply restorative and justice oriented. We must rely on each other to take care of each other - which is easier said than done depending on who you are. They require a lot alot alot of love. A lot of forgiveness. We deserve chances after we make mistakes and we must also commit to reducing harm on our end. Love is not complacency or silence, or endless labor and giving everything you have away...it’s about balance, and fine-tuning to your inner rhythms so you can connect with the world.
What are you looking for in an embrace?
H: Home. Eternal truth. An inability to wiggle free, and a resolute unwillingness to do so.
A: Embraces can be really universal and dimensional. They can be digital, transferred energetically and, most famously, a physical touching. I’m looking for gentleness. I’m looking for a kind of hold that feels maternal. I’m looking for a lingering of energy that feels divine.
Fill in the blank “When I see you, I see…..
H: When I see you, I see a bushel of buds that open and retreat like an anemone. In every shapeshifting of their being—open, closed, electric, bleached—they are beautiful. I hope you remember that.
A: I see an alchemist priestess soft boi <3__<3 that whirls and twirls across all planes of existence.
Are there any imprints you’d like to leave me with?
H: I leave you with the imprint of nested evolution, a toolkit of past unfurlings, light dances and environmental cocooning supple with possibility. I leave you with a part of yourself that is in me too. I wrap you with a handbag or scarf of mine that is meant to be yours. I leave you with the imprint of a knowing best unspoken.
A: I’d like to leave you with flowers floating around your entire body. I’d like to leave you with faint whispers and touches that activate you. I’d like to leave you with the sound of seashells touching, and the ocean coming to shore. I’d like to leave you with a love that grows deeper with every act and intention of care. And I’d like to leave you with a full belly, always.